Samsung Galaxy S4: How to Hard Reset

If you are experiencing problems with your Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone or you just want to transfer ownership, you may want to learn how to hard reset the device. A hard reset will set the S4 back to factory default settings.

Force Device Off

If your S4 is frozen where it won’t respond to commands and you just want to force your Galaxy S4 to power off, simply press and hold the Power button for eight to twenty seconds and the S4 will eventually turn off.

Hard Reset From Device Startup

Warning: Performing these steps will erase data from the memory on your phone. Any settings or data located in the phone’s memory will be deleted.

A method to hard reset is provided in case your phone doesn’t start up properly and you can’t perform the software method.

1. Power the S4 completely off. Ensure that all notification lights are off before you try the next step.

2. Press and hold Volume Up, then press and release Power. If you did everything correctly, the Samsung Galaxy S4 logo will appears, and it will say Recovery Booting in the upper-left corner of the screen..

3. Use the Volume Down button to toggle the selection to wipe data/factory reset, then press the Power button to make that selection.

4. Use the Volume Down button to toggle the selection to Yes — delete all user data, then press the Power button.

5. The factory reset process will begin. It can take a few minutes. Once it’s finished, select the reboot system now option, and your device will restart in its factory reset state.

Hard Reset Via Phone Menus

If you can access the menus on your phone, you can use these steps to perform a hard reset.

1. From the Home screen, select Apps.

2. Swipe over to the screen that has the Settings icon, then select it.

2. Choose Accounts at the top of the screen.

3. Select Back up and reset.

4. Tap Factory data reset.

5. A warning will appear warning you that your data will be erased. If you’re sure you want to proceed with the hard reset, tap Reset device.

You have successfully completed a hard reset on the Samsung Galaxy S4.

Comments

Even Samsung’s own documents say IN WORDS that we need to scroll up or down and select the appropriate option at each step in the hard reset instructions. Sadly, that isn’t a lot of help to those of us, whose screens are malfunctioning due to cracks, etc. It would be helpful to have screen shots of the procedure, so that we can “fly blind,” estimating the number of times we need to scroll down before pressing the power button, for example. I’m going to hope that the layouts and wording for these deeply embedded emergency screens change rarely or never, and so retaking of screenshots won’t be necessary, or at least, not very often. But it would be nice to have them.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 Model GT-i9500.. The screen is 4 3/4 diagonally.
The Menu and return buttons on the bottom are HARD CLICK, not lite-touch.
In the setting, there are no phone info at all.
The keyboard is a telephone type keyboard, not a standard pc type keyboard.
Is there something wrong with my phone

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My name is Mitch Bartlett. I've been working in technology for over 20 years in a wide range of tech jobs from Tech Support to Software Testing. I started this site as a technical guide for myself and it has grown into what I hope is a useful reference for all.